Heightened security on Bastille Day for fear of anti-Assad demonstrations
Eight thousand police are to patrol the streets of Paris for its annual Bastille Day celebrations Monday, to which some 40 foreign leaders attending Sunday”s Mediterranean Union summit are invited, including Lebanese President Michel Sleiman.
The grouping will see the 27 countries from the European Union join states in North Africa and the Middle East, bringing leaders from Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority to the same table.
Police sources said they particularly feared demonstrations and protests linked to Assad”s presence.
All of the heads of state and government attending the summit have been invited to join French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Bastille Day, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who has confirmed his attendance.
This will be the first meeting between Sleiman and Assad since the Lebanese president’s election in May.
A 30-member national unity government on Friday was announced in Lebanon, the second step in fulfilling the Doha Agreement, which ended an armed political crisis that brought the country close to an all-out civil war.
The police deployment in Paris is almost double that of last year, and officers have been told to exercise "extreme vigilance" for the traditional parade along the Champs Elysees, the Paris police department said.
Video cameras and bag searches will be in operation, with surveillance teams deployed on the nearby River Seine, and police have been authorized to seize any object "liable to disrupt public order."
Police sources said that some 6,000 officers would be deployed for the summit on Sunday, held to launch the Union for the Mediterranean, a flagship project of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
France”s Bastille Day celebrations have been held under heightened security since an attempted assault against president Jacques Chirac in 2002.